The Russian artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid (aka ‘Komar and Melamid’) started their artwork careers producing state-sanctioned Socialist Realism – that’s to say, the sort of reverent, red-tinted imagery that involves thoughts if you image Soviet propaganda posters. Quickly, nonetheless, they discovered themselves enmeshed in a subversive underground artwork motion, creating ironic, subversive and sometimes tragicomic imagery that resulted in certainly one of their exhibitions being actually bulldozed by their totalitarian authorities. Created on the event of a retrospective of their work on the Zimmerli Artwork Museum at Rutgers College in New Jersey in 2023, this quick movie tells the story of how the duo rose to prominence within the early Nineteen Seventies earlier than finally falling out over creative and philosophical variations. In doing so, the US-based director Sam Vladimirsky explores how two relatively self-serious establishments – the Soviet authorities and the US artwork world – responded to their provocations, and the irrepressible nature of creativity and expression.
